UNDP in Pakistan

Unmet development goals

January 28, 2014

WE can only agree with the assessment of Haoliang Xu, UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, when he says that there is no “sense of urgency” in Pakistan at the national level to deal with this country’s socio-economic crises. To illustrate his point, the UN official, while speaking to this newspaper, highlighted Pakistan’s poor performance where the Millennium Development Goals are concerned. Instead of pushing us further into despondency, such observations, bitter as they are to digest, should prompt us to take remedial measures. Frankly speaking, our performance in the field of socio-economic development is nothing short of shameful. Taking the MDGs as a benchmark, it would be interesting to see how many of our MNAs, for example, could name even a single of the eight goals. The fact is that the state, the politicians, much of civil society and the general population are simply not concerned about human development.

We are in no position to meet the MDGs by 2015. Ever since the global community under the aegis of the UN pledged to meet the goals back in 2000, Pakistan has had only marginal success.